Team Minato Moments
by whoeverIamloves
Summary: This will be a collection of drabbles about the team Minato was assigned to mentor (that is, Kakashi, Rin, and Obito) before Gaiden happens. So far my ideas are (gasp) mostly Rin- and Kakashi-centric. Latest: Minato gives Kakashi the all-out spar he's been asking for; Minato kicks his butt and worries about him.
1. Rin's News

Inspired by my other drabble "Quick Thinking" and my other collection "Team 7 Moments." What would it have been like for Minato, Kakashi, and Obito when Rin first started her medical training? Here's the result. :)

The usual disclaimers.

* * *

Minato held his hand up to pause the spar currently going on between himself and his two punctual students just as Obito jogged up to the group.

"Sorry I'm late, everyone," he said with his normal sheepish grin. "A shopkeeper was having trouble opening his store because the door hinges were stuck, and there was already a line forming and he still needed to prepare..." Obito trailed off, seeing the skeptical, impatient expressions on his teammates' faces.

Minato gave him a flat look, and Kakashi crossed his arms. "So his lack of preparation was a good enough reason for you to be late for your own duties?" Kakashi berated him. If this weren't so common, he probably wouldn't feel the need to say anything, or if their sensei would just crack down on the rules, it might not be a problem at all. Kakashi stared at Obito, waiting for him to try to come up with a valid answer, and Obito just stood there staring back with a blank, "racking-his-brain" expression and a slightly open mouth.

Their sensei sighed and shook his head. "Anyway," he began, "now that we're all here…" He looked around at the three of them, Rin's eyes glittering and the boys both looking at him with mild interest about the day's training plans. He grinned. "Now that we're all here, Rin has some exciting news."

Both boys looked at her, and she suddenly blushed. She was so rarely the center of attention that she must not be used to everyone looking at her at the same time. She smiled shyly, joining her hands behind her back.

"Rin's going to start training as a medic," Minato told them. "Her chakra control makes her an ideal candidate for it, and Tsunade-hime wants every team to have a medic if possible from now on. The Sandaime Hokage is backing her up on this, though he's not making it mandatory if a team doesn't have anyone suited for that type of jutsu." He paused with a proud smile on his face. "We do, though, so I recommended her for the preliminary training last week, and she passed with flying colors."

Obito was beaming at his friend now. "Way to go, Rin! That's awesome!"

Kakashi simply nodded his approval, and Minato went on. "From now on, Rin will only be training with us two days a week. She'll spend the other 3 days working with the medical corps."

"That's great! Hey Rin, how long until you're a full-fledged medic?" Obito asked, still grinning at her apparent promotion.

Rin looked to Minato, who just smiled at her and nodded for her to speak for herself. "They told me it will take a few years for me to complete all the training, but I should be able to use some basic healing jutsus in real missions in just a couple of months," she said with a small, excited smile. "And the first year will be the most intense training, and after that they'll add me to hospital rotations so I can get more experience."

Obito just grinned for a moment, and Kakashi nodded again. "Congratulations," the masked chuunin said finally, and it even sounded like he meant it.

"As long as Rin has medic training every other day, we'll probably be taking fewer overnight missions during the week and more single-day missions. I expect the two of you," Minato pinned Obito with a look, "to use the extra free time to train with your own jutsus and read up on whatever kind of ninjutsu strikes your interest."

Obito gulped and Kakashi rolled his eyes again. "H-hai, sensei," the Uchiha stammered. Kakashi smirked and nodded. He'd been meaning to find time to start studying the language of sealing jutsus, or maybe lightning chakra nature manipulation.

"And Rin," Minato added with a teasing glint in his eyes, "your reduced time training with us means we're going to have to step it up when you are here. We don't want you going soft from sitting and studying all the time."

Rin sighed dramatically and crossed her arms in an overly-offended pout, her way of accepting her sensei's statement while still managing to tease him back.

Minato suddenly clapped his hands together. "Okay, then. For today, we'll start with the standard three laps around the training grounds for Rin and Kakashi. Obito, four for you for being late."

Three heads bobbed a "hai!" and then two of them started jogging toward the starting point they always used. Kakashi paused and looked up at Minato to find the Yellow Flash already looking at him.

"Yes?" Minato asked.

"Sensei, does this mean I can punch Obito a little harder from now on for always being late?"

Minato fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Get going, Kakashi," he chuckled.

* * *

I have at least one more almost written, and another little idea turning. If anyone has suggestions to offer/request for non-medic moments, though, I'd love to hear them. Especially Obito moments.


	2. Assessment Jutsu Practice

:) I haven't forgotten about my other fic(s). The muse goes where the muse wants; what can I say?

Disclaimers: I own nothing; my only medical knowledge comes from high school anatomy class and Google search.

* * *

Rin studied her chuunin teammate as he started his second set of 50 push-ups. The two of them (minus their sensei, since he was off on a mission) were sitting near the entrance of their usual training ground waiting for Obito to finally show up. They had already run some warm up laps, stretched, and spent an hour sparring. It was definitely more of a workout for her than it was for him, so when she'd suggested a break, he'd only mildly chastised her for slacking off on her physical training and agreed to a half hour break for her while he worked on his own strength training.

She'd been content to simply sit and sip from her water bottle, happy to have a day with her teammates as a break from her intense medic training. She enjoyed her time with the emotionally challenged preteen, though she'd never let him know it was anything other than normal teammate camaraderie. So, she made a point to try not to blush when Kakashi interrupted her thoughts. She hadn't meant to stare absently at his arms, or to let her mind wander back to the previous day's lesson.

"What?" he asked bluntly in response to her continued gaze on him.

"Nothing," she started. "I was just thinking about my training yesterday."

"Hn," he answered. She recognized it as a signal that he was listening if she wanted to go on. Training of any kind was one of the few things she knew interested him, and she smiled to herself.

"Well, they usually start us in the morning with jutsu drills and practice, and until a couple of weeks ago, it was always practicing the one we learned at the very beginning- the mystical palm jutsu. But a couple of weeks ago, they taught us an assessment jutsu where you use your chakra to kind of 'see' inside." She paused for a minute, an idea forming in her head. "Then in the afternoon, it's usually lecture and studying. First aid, anatomy and physiology, paperwork stuff, that kind of thing. Yesterday the topic was all about how muscles work."

Yesterday, she hadn't quite grasped what the instructor had said about how muscle cells (or strands or something) sliding against each other is what makes a muscle contract or relax. She could understand that when a muscle tightened, it was actually pulling, but the lecture hadn't been very clear about why they were considered "relaxed" even when they still seemed tight.

She was not about to admit to the teammate she admired that she was having trouble with the medic training; the jutsus were fairly simple for her to understand, even if they took some practice to master, and she was proud of the fact that she was already better at the new jutsu than most of her fellow trainees.

This particular instructor just seemed to be more of an image thinker, whereas she was coming to realize she was more of a hands-on understander. She could keep up with the class fine by memorizing, but if she really wanted to understand something, as Minato-sensei was always insisting was the most important aspect of learning, then she needed to feel it for herself. The drawings and pictures yesterday had helped some, but not enough.

"Hey, Kakashi?" she said as he neared the end of his second fifty and the beginning of his third set.

"Hn?"

"Can I try my new jutsu on you while you do your push-ups?"

This actually earned her a mildly surprised glance from the corner of his eye, so she felt the need to explain her request.

"I feel like I've improved about as much as I can with practicing it on fish," she said. "I'm ahead of everyone else, and I want to kind of…'see' what the instructor was talking about yesterday. His diagrams were actually more confusing than helpful." And they weren't allowed to practice on their classmates yet, because several of the students were still struggling with the fish. She was itching to try it for real.

She could see Kakashi considering, so she took a sip of water and waited in what she hoped was a casual way for his answer. After two more push-ups, he shrugged with his eyebrows (since his shoulders were otherwise busy).

"Okay," he said, and she smiled and closed her drink. Even if he refused to think of anyone as a friend, she guessed he still wanted to help his teammates train with whatever would make them stronger (as shown by the earlier pounding he'd put her through in taijutsu—she knew that was definitely for her benefit, as it wasn't even a challenge for him).

She scooted to be within arm's reach of him, deciding to go for his upper arm where she'd been absently looking earlier. She tried not to be nervous—she'd only ever used her medical justu before under the close supervision of her shishou, and it had only been twice now.

This jutsu, though, she had never used on another person. She didn't think it was difficult; she'd tried it on herself a few times, but there's something very different about feeling around in your own leg with chakra that came from your own body and feeling around inside something that was not yourself. And the fish…well, you had to keep the fish alive with the mystical palm, so they weren't actually all that useful for practicing other jutsu because they just suffocated before you could really learn anything. So far they'd worked with a lab partner for that reason, taking turns doing the mystical palm and the assessment jutsu, but she was sick of the fish. She knew more than she ever wanted to know about the structure of a fish's gills, and their muscles were totally different than the human skeletal muscles she was confused about.

Kakashi seemed to be ignoring her, focusing on the ground in front of him as he continued to move himself methodically up and down. She focused her chakra, formed the seal for this jutsu, and when her hands began to glow green, she moved her fingertips to hover a few centimeters from Kakashi's bicep.

She half expected him to wince or pull away from her when she eased her chakra into his arm, or at least to make some kind of change in the rhythm of his exercise, but he didn't. It was as if he wasn't even aware of it, to her mild relief. She paid careful attention to his rhythm so that she could move her hands in perfect time.

She immediately noted the difference between human skin and fish skin. With the mystical palm jutsu, she wasn't really able to feel very much in her patient; she could tell if there was too much heat or tension or not enough blood or chakra in a general area, but it was like wearing a double layer of mittens where actual sensations were concerned. It was the first jutsu new medics learned because it was the most useful general healing technique, and it was the most useful because it poured chakra into the patient's body in a way that allowed the recipient's cells to absorb it and use it as they needed.

This jutsu, though much more limited in its healing abilities, gave her the ability to extend her senses into another living thing and feel, or see, or somehow simply _know_ what was happening within the glow of her hands. She smiled to herself at the difference she felt from the fish—where the animal's exterior was cold and thin and almost like wet paper to send her chakra through, Kakashi's skin was more like cotton in comparison, warm, dry, a bit thicker, and definitely more pleasant.

Keeping her hands close to his arm but not actually touching, she made sure to stay exactly the same distance as he pushed himself up and down. With each rise, she noted that the muscle on the back of his arm bunched more than his bicep did; in fact, the front of his upper arm was tight, but wasn't really "constricting" as the lecturer had mentioned. It was simply...balancing the effort of the back muscle.

She turned her attention briefly again to the muscle that was contracting. Through the process of three more rises and falls, she noted that the volume of the muscle didn't change. It was either short or long, and when it was short, it was thicker, and when it was long, it was taller. And the texture didn't change either—she was almost surprised she could sense something like texture in the muscle her fingers weren't actually touching, and she wasn't sure that was quite the right word—but the density stayed the same.

_So that's what he meant_! she realized. The only way the density could stay the same was if the same _kinds_ of things were there, simply more of them. So, there were just more of them in the middle when the muscle was short, and fewer in the middle when it was long. And the pulling effect must be because it took effort to group them together, and the natural position must be the "long" position.

Just as everything was beginning to click for her, Kakashi stopped his motion. Rin's concentration broke, and the green glow immediately dissipated as she jerked her hands back.

"You okay?" she asked, trying not to sound panicky. He had paused himself in the "down" position.

"I'm fine. Between sets," he told her. "Would it help if I'm still for a minute?"

Rin's face flushed slightly. She hadn't meant to interrupt his routine. "Um, actually I was already starting to understand. It's ok," she said, starting to scoot away again.

"You should practice while you can," he said simply.

"Are you sure? I didn't mean to make you stop doing your own training..."

"Obito may get here soon, and tomorrow you're back to fish."

Rin wondered if that might be just the slightest smirk in his voice when he made the comment about going back to the regular medic training. She wrinkled her nose. It was true that he could do the push-ups later with much more ease than she would be able to practice later...

"Okay, if you're sure..." She formed the seal again and raised her hands, this time to the back of his shoulder. She wasn't sure how it would change the jutsu, using it through his shirt instead of on his bare arm, but the worst it could do was make it a little less effective, right? She spoke while maintaining her focus, now that she knew he wasn't going to try to surprise her. "What does it feel like?" she asked quietly.

Kakashi thought for a moment while she explored the shape of the contracted muscle holding him a few inches from the ground. "It doesn't feel like much," he finally decided. "It's a tiny bit warm, and maybe a little tingly, and that's all."

"Oh," she said. After a moment, she felt like she understood the whole concept of "contracted muscle" much better. Then she decided that since she was already interrupting him, she might as well take his advice about practicing while she could. "Since you're already paused," she said hesitantly, "would you mind resting on the ground for a minute?"

Kakashi shrugged with his eyebrows and lowered himself the last couple of inches, relieving the tension from his arms and shoulders. Rin followed his body with her hands once again, noting the change from "contracted" to "relaxed."

Just then, Obito finally made his appearance. He ran up to them panting, and breathed out a quick "are you okay?" as he caught his breath. Rin was once more startled out of her concentration, so she pulled her hands back into her lap. Obito was scanning Kakashi, clearly trying to figure out why Rin would be using her healing jutsu on him on the training ground unless he was hurt somehow.

Kakashi didn't deign to answer, so Rin smiled at his concern for their prickly teammate. "Kakashi was just letting me try out my new jutsu, for training."

Obito's eyes didn't look any less confused, but he nodded. "Oh," he said. He took a breath to say something else, but Kakashi cut him off in a bored voice.

"You should start your warm-up," Kakashi told him. "Four laps, like Minato-sensei always gives you when you're late."

Obito's eyebrow twitched, and Rin stood up to prevent the oncoming argument. "And I've had enough of a break now, so I should probably practice my forms." She started walking toward the starting point for the laps, knowing that Obito would follow her. "I'll practice here in the sun," she said, "then maybe we can team up against Kakashi like usual."

Kakashi nodded, lifting himself to begin his third set. Sparring wouldn't be a challenge for him any other way, and even this way it probably wouldn't be much of one.

"You know, Rin, you can practice on me if you need to sometime too," Obito offered, and Rin nodded.

"Thanks. I might need to...I never thought about using practice outside of class to actually understand this stuff, but it seems like it really helped me."

With that, Obito nodded and began his first lap, and Rin looked back toward Kakashi. "Thanks," she said, and he gave a "hn" in response.

She smiled again to herself, feeling like the morning was off to a really good start. Both boys had a pretty rigid sense of personal space (though one was because he was "prickly" and the other seemed to simply be shy of her in that regard). Being a tactile, kinesthetic person herself, she had often missed that aspect of friendship with the two of them, which actually caused her to even enjoy the close-combat aspect of taijutsu practice— at least when Kakashi would go easy on them.

Her small smile widened into a grin as she settled into the first kata position. She could get used to this new role of hers.

* * *

This is meant to be platonic. I know Rin had a crush on Kakashi at least at some point; this is not intended show her as a pervert! I've kind of established in my mind that she's a touch-oriented person, so this seemed to fit. I was aiming for just the "friend" kind of touch here, because it's how I function too. I love hugs, personally.


	3. All Out Spar

Thanks for the reviews I've gotten so far! They make my day.

Set shortly after Minato's Team 7 was formed; going on the assumption that Kakashi had already made chuunin by the time that happened.

Special shout-out to The Goliath Beetle for her collection "Warmth" (which fits with the theme of this vignette); it's fabulous. I meant for this drabble to be only Kakashi-centric, but then the ending just kind of happened, I think inspired at least partially by that collection. Credit where credit is due.

The usual disclaimers: I own no part of the Naruto universe. Wish I did.

* * *

"Sensei, why are you still going easy on me?" chuunin Kakashi demanded. "If you baby me like you baby them all the time, I won't be able to improve!"

Minato sighed as he blocked punch after kick from the wiry little shinobi. Obito and Rin paused in their attacks to stare at Kakashi. The boy had been pestering him for a couple of weeks now for an all-out spar, because he wanted to get stronger faster. He'd made it clear that he had no delusions about being able to win against the Yellow Flash, but apparently he thought he could at least hold his own. When they broke into one-on-one training, he did push Kakashi harder than the others to match the boy's skill level, but Kakashi had long since realized that he was still "being babied," as he called it, and it frustrated him.

Currently, all three students were supposed to be facing off as a team against their sensei. Kakashi was doing the close-range attack, and Rin was covering him from mid-range with shiruken. Obito was doing a bit of both as he saw openings. They'd been a team for about 3 months now, and Minato had hoped to see better teamwork by this point- or at least some small indication of any teamwork at all from Kakashi.

They weren't fighting very well as a team, mainly because Kakashi was ignoring the other two. Obito was able to attempt a few blows, which Minato blocked and dodged effectively, and Rin wasn't having too much trouble finding openings to throw her weapons probably because Kakashi was physically so much smaller than the adult. It annoyed Minato a bit that they were definitely fighting as three separate attackers (or at least two attackers, one of which had back-up), when he'd been trying all day to get them to use combo attacks.

"Obito, Rin, take a break," Minato said after blocking a few more strikes. Kakashi's eyes widened a bit in surprise, and Obito and Rin shared a glance of apprehension (and maybe sympathy?) for Kakashi. They retreated to the place they'd left their water bottles and sat down to watch the show.

"Kakashi, you still want an all-out taijutsu match against me?"

"H-hai!"

Minato stood up in the formal "face-off" posture, and Kakashi mirrored him. They bowed to each other.

"Begin!" Minato said, and suddenly he was behind Kakashi with a kunai to his throat before Kakashi could even blink. "Yield," he said.

Kakashi blinked. "I yield," he answered, and Minato fell back into the ready position as Kakashi turned to face him.

"Begin!" This time, Kakashi wasted no time standing still. He jumped into the air, intending to twist to the side, but before his feet could even leave the ground, he was thrown onto his stomach with Minato-sensei crouching over him with a kunai again. "Yeild."

"I yield."

Then Minato gave him a hand up and both fell back into ready stances. "Begin!" This time, Kakashi tried to rush straight forward at Minato, but Minato closed the distance between them and Kakashi ran into his sensei's outstretched forearm, clotheslining himself at the waist. Minato flipped him onto his back and crouched over him again with the same kunai. "Yield."

"I yield," Kakashi choked out, still trying to catch his breath from having the wind knocked out of him.

Minato pulled him up again by the arm before his breathing was quite back to normal.

Ready. "Begin!" Kunai. "Yield." "I yield."

Ready. "Begin!" Kunai. "Yield." "I yield."

Ready. "Begin!" Kunai. "Yield." "I yield."

By about the twentieth time he found himself instantly on the ground, Kakashi was noticeably out of breath and feeling quite a bit of frustration. As Minato set him on his feet once again, he shook his head to try to focus.

"Begin!"

Kakashi threw a blind elbow behind him, determined not to give up, and found himself once again face down on the ground, this time with his arm pulled uncomfortably behind his back.

"Yeild."

Kakashi breathed out from between clenched teeth. "I yield," he muttered for what felt like the hundredth time. Minato-sensei wasn't even winded at all.

"We can stop this, Kakashi, if you're ready to let me decide the pace of your training," he said as he released the boy and stood up.

Kakashi pushed himself to his feet again and faced his sensei. "Again," he said.

Minato resisted the urge to sigh again. "Begin."

* * *

An hour later, Kakashi was panting and more than a little bruised, and Rin and Obito were sparring against each other a short distance away. He half suspected that Minato-sensei was still going a little bit easy on him, simply because of the fact that he could still stand on his own, and it pissed him off.

When he found himself flat on his back yet again, Minato didn't let him up quite as quickly.

"Kakashi," he said.

"Hai."

"Are you ready to yield to my teaching yet?"

Kakashi continued to pant for a moment. He had to be getting better, right? A person couldn't take this kind of workout and not get better, could they?

"I'm getting better."

Minato raised one eyebrow. "You think so?" he asked skeptically.

"I want to keep going. You're still holding back."

Minato drew in a deep breath and let it out before he stood up.

"Kakashi, I'm holding back from using force because it's bad form for a sensei to seriously injure his student. I'm not holding back in my speed; I'm just not using any chakra either."

Kakashi wasn't quite sure he believed it. Maybe in very short bursts his sensei was going at full non-chakra speed, but he'd seen other sparring matches against other jounin where Sensei would use his speed advantage for much longer stretches, even after the opponent was confused. Kakashi settled into the ready stance once more. "You're still being too easy on me. I can take more than that. I can learn from it."

"And just what is it that you're learning?"

"To go straight for the kill."

Minato frowned. "No," he said quietly. "I'm ending these so quickly because you wanted an all-out match. That's what I would do against an enemy who was a serious threat to my team, not a sparring partner who needed to work on technique. And it's not about killing them; it's about gaining the upper hand early on."

"They're the enemy. If they're trying to kill you, it's better to kill them."

"Kakashi, what use is a dead enemy?"

Kakashi blinked. "None. Not to you or to their own country."

"What use would a live one be?" Minato asked.

"Information. Or a hostage."

"Or a future ally?"

Kakashi looked a bit taken aback, but shrugged noncommittally. "Sure," he said, though his tone sounded more like "yeah right."

Minato took another deep breath and let it out, his face settling into a grim expression. "Begin," he said, and the next instant Kakashi was pinned again.

* * *

Minato shut the door to his apartment and slumped against it. Whatever Kushina was cooking smelled good, but not quite good enough to take his mind off of the day's training.

Kushina poked her head out of the kitchen and waved at him with her ladle, grinning to have him home. He smiled weakly back with a "hey," and her own cheerful smile shrunk. She disappeared from sight long enough to turn the stove down to "simmer" so the soup wouldn't burn, and he used the opportunity to discard his vest and weapons pouch. Then she was approaching him.

"What's wrong?" she asked, tugging him by the hand to sit on the couch with her.

He settled into the cushions and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He sighed. "It's Kakashi," he said after a moment.

"What about him?"

"He's…well, you know he's been bugging me to go all out against him lately, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, today I finally gave it to him."

Kushina pulled away from him, startled. She had that look Minato recognized as trying to decide whether to punch him or give him the benefit of the doubt, so he put his hands up in front of him and talked a little faster.

"Not _all-_out, of course. I didn't hurt him."

"You better not have, you know," she said, the look softening a bit. "So what happened?"

Minato raked his hand through his hair, frowning. "I'm not really sure, actually."

"Huh?"

"Well, obviously I mopped the floor with him. He went home exhausted and sore. We were at it most of the day, and he never even managed to anticipate my strikes."

"Of course not. If you weren't holding back, even another jounin couldn't have seen you move so fast," she reminded him with a small smile in her voice.

"I know. But…I'm afraid he got the wrong message. He only noticed how I was going right for the point. 'Straight for the kill,' he said."

"Did you talk to him about it?"

"I tried. I don't think he was listening. He doesn't get that I even hold back a bit against other jounin."

Kushina laid her head on her husband's shoulder, not sure how to respond. It was not exactly something she could beat him for. She knew Kakashi's history too, after all. How could anyone make the boy understand?

"By the end of the day, he finally yielded for real. He finally realized he can't improve by lying on his back all the time at the point of a blade."

Kushina's eyebrows rose. It had taken the boy all day to accept the idea that his sensei had a better sense of how to train him?

"So he'll quit demanding that you stop holding back?"

"Yeah. He'll submit to my training as I see fit, he told me. He knows he can't keep up yet."

"So the other part…?"

Minato fidgeted with a strand of bright red hair, twisting his fingers around it and pulling it through. "I don't know. He'll submit to me for learning skills, but lately his obsession with following the ninja rules…it worries me, more and more."

"What are you going to do about it?"

Minato shook his head. "I don't know."

Kushina sighed. "You'll get through to him. Nobody can resist you forever."

Minato chuckled softly. "You're just saying that because you couldn't resist me."

She grinned up at him. "That's true," she admitted, then dropped the grin. "But really, Kakashi is still just a child. I know you love your team, and they should know it too. Nobody can ignore that. He'll come around eventually, you know?"

Minato sighed. "I hope you're right," he said.

* * *

I didn't mean for this to turn dark. I just wanted to see Kakashi get his ass handed to him by Minato. But you know...stories have a will of their own sometimes.


End file.
